Influence of variety and sowing dates on the yield and yield attributes of boro season rice in aerobic condition

Suitable variety selection in combination with adopting optimum sowing dates could have great impacts on the crop physiology and yield performance. Bangladesh has three distinct rice growing seasons in a year namely; Aus, Aman and Boro. Boro rice growing in an aerobic condition is a modern concept which is eco-friendly and requires less water. It helps to grow rice like an upland rice crop with adequate inputs and supplementary irrigation when rainfall is insufficient and can save 50-60% irrigation water in Boro season rice production. The objectives of this study is therefore to select the suitable Boro season rice variety and optimum sowing date of Boro rice for maximization of yield in aerobic condition. To achieve these objectives, an experiment was conducted in a completely randomized block design consisted of five varieties trearmens viz. BR16 (Shahibalam), BRRI dhan 28, BRRI dhan29, BRRI dhan 47 and BRRI dhan 55 and three sowing dates namely; January 01, January 11 and January 21respectively. The results showed that BRRI dhan 29 sowing in January 01 produced the highest grain yield (7.31 t ha-1), highest gross return, net return and benefit-cost ratio (2.63). On the other hand, the lowest grain yield (3.74 t ha-1) was found from BRRI dhan28 sowing in January 21with less benefit- cost ratio (2.49) respectively. Thus, BRRI dhan 29 in combination with early sowing (01 January) can be used to for better yield performance in aerobic condition during Boro rice cultivation.